The Nexus: Revealed!

Could go either way, lower population numbers mean ambush points will have to be set up in advance to have any effect. Armor assets in limited pop combat will need to be abandoned at times anyway.
The nexus sounds like it is not a place for those inflexible in their style of gameplay, which is exactly as it needs to be.

If your going to completely negate armor as being a factor there you should at least give drivers the ability to refund their tanks after they have to be abandoned. As is the only thing people will bother to pull will be AMS Sunderers, and maybe not even that if you can LA yourself onto a mountain and spawn beacon the whole fight.

These places sound great. The more verity added to the game the better! With only 48 people a side Tanks suddenly have a whole new meaning. Sure they are easy to kill, but there are only 48 people out to get you at any one time. And one tank can hold the line very well in small fights. Also the fact is 48 people are fighting over 9 bases... So many opportunities for flanking, so many ways to advance.

I look forward to the different style of combat that will be offered, if only because it offers more things in one game!

Planetside 1 had battle islands without involvement of MLG.

Bit of a stretch to say armor is completely negated at this point.

The map design doesn't really allow them to do anything. Every base is only approachable on small roads with high cliff walls to either side and once you do reach the bases you can't get into them with armor.

Tanks don't really do well without open spaces that Infantry can't hide from them in, with the high mountains and cliff walls there is plenty of spaces Infantry can occupy that tanks simply can't touch.

Have you played on the nexus then?

...and with this news the reality is becoming more and more clear.

The scope in Planetside 2 is getting smaller and smaller.

This game, eventually, will no longer be about massive battles, but small teams of bouncy spammers and OTT go carts that can take the damage of a tank and kill one in return. Pilots who fly above the fray and spam missles onto hapless infantry trying to coordinate something other than a keyboard freak-fest in CQB.

An interesting battle simulation turned into nothing more than what has existed in nearly every other FPS since the beginning.

Small battles of small teams tacked on to a flow chart.

What a supreme let down...

Some of these things may work well in competitions where everyones connection is the same and there is little lag, but when you try this across the internet it's getting ugly and frustrating for more and more people.

Why not just make "instanced" 12 v 12 battles SOE outfit against outfit? Why have a map at all?

Perhaps this is why there is no real background for the game, no real purpose other than constantly taking the same base over and over again without rhyme or reason. Nor any attempt for the last year to add even an ounce flavor other than Red, Blue and Purple teams with just a vague sense of faction history.

I've held on to the game since the beginning. Through the adjustments, the changes and the nerfs with the sincere hope that the game will be what it always promised to be.

Now I don't know what to think. Adding the Nexus and yet another continent does NOTHING to make the game what it should be. Just more space to whittle down to nothing.

It cannot be done with how things are now. Lots of obstacles? difficult to navigate. Open fields? Infantry with long-range AV will shred the tanks in seconds. Even "old" Esamir was already a paradise for the AV MANA turret, for example. The closest we can get is an open field with some rocks the tank can drive behind to repair, but that is as long as the long range AV is coming from the same spot. Otherwise that cover is meaningless.

I've watch the fly through that VanuLabs did of the place, I don't have to physically play something to be able to see if the geography supports a tank playstyle. All the bases I saw were like the Stronghold in exterior design, in that they had stairs up to a rampart like wall elevated off the ground by several meters making it impossible to shoot inside. And the roads between these bases were all very cramped affairs that make it impossible to flank with a vehicle, but fairly easy to go around with gal drops.

Wow, he makes reference to how a lot MLG players act like elitist (he wasn't even referring to you directly), and how do you react? By acting like a complete elitist. I think you proved his point.

Interest is heating up on the official MLG forums too! There are actually a total of 9 threads now that aren't recruitment threads for outfits no one has heard of. I hope the servers are prepared to handle this massive influx of MLG players we're about to have.

I got a little defensive because I feel like I've put a lot of work into trying not to be that type of person. Hence why I opened up the community forums over at www.planetside.cc to everyone and just just competitive outfits.

Please stop telling me the truth.

You guys like to all talk crap about a map that most of you haven't played and have forgotten how creative people can get when a battle comes and goes. You all make it sound like the end times are near for this and that. Please stop and stand back from the computer.

I have. Ive read everything youve put out. Hes spot on buddy.

I think TWF had asked Higby directly about streaming right before the "restart" that happened. Higby said it was fine as long as it was labeled as a playtest. I put mine up as well for the duration @

Gonna copy/paste what I posted on the blog thingy as I think it's probably better suited here.

Even at 100 per side, that's still way too low. I think the majority of PS2 players are a bit content starved and will be sitting at the warpgate waiting to get in and completely ignoring the other continents. And that leads to improper data collection as to how everything ties together.

As much as I want PS2 to branch out and get more of a following, I can see this going very badly. The way the game is setup now: Large battles, lots of people, logistics. The way the nexus reads like it's setup: Decisive small battles, a small group of the best players, logistics but faster. Now I've said best players as it would be stupid of an empire to send their worst if there was such a small population cap. The entire empire could be steam rolling the continent, but can't get to the next one because a bunch of recruits keep getting into the nexus and losing.

Don't get me wrong, I am totally aware that with a smaller map comes more restrictions on population for the sole reason of there is less space for people to spread out which means more people on the screen which leads to potentially more lag.

Personally, I think the battle islands need to be separate from the continent to continent warfare. A place for MLG groups only as a place to brag their skills and nothing that affects the larger mass of players. Maybe give small rewards or heck, give the top performing outfits first pick on base ownership in the nexus. But the core of the game needs to be left to the masses, otherwise SOE will need to make a **** ton more little islands to accommodate the massive demand to get into them because of the low population caps. And if they do that, the larger continents will be ignored which kind of goes against the whole point of PS2.

TL;DR
Small map with small pop. cap does not bode well for a game with thousands of players who all play on the same server.

I picked 300 as a throw back to roughly PS1's original continent population cap